Candidates Vie for Senior Class Presidency

With fewer audience members than speakers, the candidates for the Columbia College Student Council’s senior class council talked programming and environmentalism in Wien lounge Wednesday night.

Early on in the friendly meeting—a debate more in name than in practice—the Fusion Party, headed by Mark Johnson, touted its years of experience on council.

“We know the channels for how to get things done,” said Mallory Carr, CC ’09, Fusion’s candidate for vice president.

Jason Patinkin, CC ’09 and Carr’s counterpart in the opposing Leadership Evolved: My Oh Nine party, argued that as coordinator for EarthCo for the past two years, he, too, had the know-how to navigate the University bureaucracy.

“We may be seen as outsiders without experience,” Patinkin said, “but the reality is quite different.”

When Fusion directly questioned LE:MON’s ability to work with the administration, Colin Drummond, CC ’09 and LE:MON’s senior class president candidate, pointed out that his role does not heavily involve University officials.

“The senior class council is an entirely different breed than the whole council,” Drummond said. Instead of policy changes, “we’re mostly dealing with programming.”
LE:MON said that it would improve campus life by hosting events that seniors care about and by enhancing online communication through the council Web site and class e-mails.

Johnson said that Fusion makes it a point to be accessible to students. “Everyone on our council is very engaging, very known around campus,” he said. To highlight the breadth of their connections to student groups, Fusion party members listed the different types of groups they have worked with.

Drummond was unimpressed. “Believe it or not,” he said wryly, “we’re in a lot of groups, too. I think a lot of people on campus are in student groups.”

The real challenge, he said, is to promote and reach out to those groups.

Taking a personal interest in environmental initiatives, Patinkin rattled off a list of ways to save energy, including supplementing transportation to airports to cut down on single cab rides, allowing students to pay fees to offset their carbon usage, and limiting ads left in student mailboxes.

“We can accomplish this, I think, because throughout my experience, I’ve worked with anyone who means anything in the environmental community, so we have the connections and knowledge to get things done,” said Patinkin, whose party is running a paperless campaign.

Zahrah Taufique, CC ’09 and a Fusion candidate for representative, stressed the need for transparency.

“Students need to know that what they recycle goes to the right place,” she said, alluding to “rumors going around about whether recycling is really happening.” She wondered aloud whether the contents of recycling bins just end up thrown away with trash.

“They’re not,” Patinkin interjected.

Both parties said they would work with the Center for Career Education to help their classmates find jobs after graduation.

“The main thing that I think we need to do is work on job areas that aren’t necessarily focused on in CCE,” such as careers in the arts and nongovernmental organizations, Patinkin said.

“I’ve already started conversations with CCE,” Johnson said, adding that he’s still “afraid about what I’m going to do after graduation myself.”

lien.hoang@columbiaspectator.com